Quote :

"Other countries, including the US, do the same thing. Pretty funny that we're indicting them for it."

Its not about actually arresting these individuals and bringing them to trial. Russia isn't going to extradite its own "intelligence agents."

Its about proving a crime was, in fact, committed. After that, all Mueller has to show is that various members of the Trump Klan knew about the crime, participated in it, lied about it, or actively tried to cover it up. Literally every indictment from here on out could possibly reference this indictment as the starting point of "Conspiracy against the United States" charges.

2/16/2018 2:57:15 PM

If that happens I'll 100% admit you're right.

2/16/2018 2:58:33 PM

do you doubt that it will?

2/16/2018 2:59:49 PM

I'm just remembering back when Clinton was under investigation and literally any time something happened, people twisted it into a sign that she was going down.

It's definitely possible, but I'm really not holding my breath.

2/16/2018 3:03:07 PM

not remotely the same thing

2/16/2018 3:12:08 PM

I would say the biggest takeaway from this is twofold.

There is definitive proof that at some level Russia tried to influence the election. And that Mueller has detailed information that has not been leaked that NO pundit, tweeter or reddit user has a damn clue about.

2/16/2018 3:13:33 PM

^^^ people who had no idea what they were talking about, maybe

[Edited on February 16, 2018 at 3:21 PM. Reason : on top of it not being comparable ]

2/16/2018 3:14:50 PM

I'm seeing a lot of people trying to spin these new indictments as a positive for Trump; as if it vindicates him from "collusion" since these 13 random Russians didn't actually work directly with him. The amount of logical hopscotch people are playing with this line of reasoning would be comical, if it weren't so infuriating.

2/16/2018 5:44:26 PM

well trump supporters are all morons, so...

2/16/2018 6:03:14 PM

ahh yes, "flood gates opening", "on the cusp", "unleaked information just around the bend", yadda yadda. but hey. "Mueller is JUST getting started"

The same things we've been hearing all along.... Also interesting, in the press conference, they announced the indictments and said there was no evidence to suggest that the actions had an "affect on the outcome of the election" but when you google this, you only find articles saying that Trump and Pence are saying that.
https://www.google.com/search?q=affect+outcome+of+election&source=lnms&tbm=nws&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiJj--IxavZAhUY_WMKHUpGAwwQ_AUICigB&biw=970&bih=452
Curious. When you hire a special counsel to investigate something, they have to come back with something tangible or else they would be saying "you shouldn't have hired me". This is that something. How long do we stretch this thing out without any real substance or is it open to any crime committed by any Russian ever?


I guess the only thing you all know for sure is that there is no way Hillary could have lost the election without some serious foul play. Why would anyone distrust our candidates and political system anyway? Our candidates and political system are so flawless (greatest the world has ever seen) that it would take a major misinformation conspiracy by a superpower to convince anyone otherwise.

Russians even went as far as trying to get black people to think that the political establishment didn't represent them. They preyed on people who were vulnerable enough to be manipulated into thinking this country was socially divided. Crazy stuff.

2/16/2018 6:03:19 PM

Earl'd.

Is it okay for me tons start using that now?

2/16/2018 6:09:48 PM

How on earth does the vindicate Trump in any way? There is DEFINITIVE PROOF that Russians were interfering in the election. Who gives a shit if the 13 people who Mueller indicted didn't directly deal with Trump? He has insisted all along that any type of investigation about Russian meddling was much-ado-about nothing, and it's painfully obvious these 13 Russians are nothing more than low hanging fruit.

[Edited on February 16, 2018 at 6:11 PM. Reason : Aww shit. Earl'd again ]

2/16/2018 6:11:16 PM

You can't keep saying that or I'm going to keep calling you out. Words have meaning and that phrase is a lie. Elections don't happen on the internet.

Quote :

"noun a formal and organized process of electing or being elected, especially of members of a political body. "the 1860 presidential election" synonyms: ballot, vote, popular vote, ballot box; poll(s); acclamation; primary "announcing the results of the election" the act or an instance of electing."

Or is Mueller still saving this "definitive proof" for a later release date?

2/16/2018 6:31:06 PM

https://twitter.com/micahcohen/status/964614227590877185

Not that facts matter to people who are trolling but Mueller investigation is in its infancy compared to most similar..

2/16/2018 7:45:02 PM

Quote :

"I guess the only thing you all know for sure is that there is no way Hillary could have lost the election without some serious foul play. Why would anyone distrust our candidates and political system anyway? Our candidates and political system are so flawless (greatest the world has ever seen) that it would take a major misinformation conspiracy by a superpower to convince anyone otherwise."

Wow. It's like every individual sentence is its own, self-contained straw man. Bravo!

2/16/2018 8:26:30 PM

Quote :

"How on earth does the vindicate Trump in any way? There is DEFINITIVE PROOF that Russians were interfering in the election. Who gives a shit if the 13 people who Mueller indicted didn't directly deal with Trump? He has insisted all along that any type of investigation about Russian meddling was much-ado-about nothing, and it's painfully obvious these 13 Russians are nothing more than low hanging fruit. "

This doesn't vindicate him in any way, but it doesn't impugn him either. The fact that Trump is an idiot that lies all the time is not new-- he literally started his presidency by lying obviously about his crowd size.

We have known all along Russia interfered with the election, and we had a vague idea of how they used social media to do it, it's mostly irrelevant at this point who specifically was involved from Russia and how specifically this does it.

All this does is give people an absolutely crystal clear set of information to look at if anyone tries to deny Russia wanted Trump to win for the purposes of harming America.

There's still loose ends, mostly what Page, Papadopolous, Manafort, and Gates and to do with all of this, what really happened with the Trump Tower meeting, why did Trump ask Russia to hack hillary's emails, what was Trump covering for my firing Comey and a few other people.

i cant imagine Mueller raps without answering these, but these 13 indictments are really only a small step from where we were.

2/16/2018 9:32:34 PM

https://www.lawfareblog.com/russian-influence-campaign-whats-latest-mueller-indictment

Probably the best analysis you’ll read of the indictments.

It’s very clear that IF Russia wanted to groom Trump, they definitely had the machinery and resources in place to do so.

Also Putin must have been laughing his ass off when Trump came out and announced he was going to form an election hacking commission with Russia. Trump is either the dumbest person in the world or he’s 100% a Russian spy.

2/17/2018 12:12:14 AM

2/17/2018 8:14:58 AM

You should read up on McCarthyism if you think this is at all similar. But I’m guessign you’re whatabout trolling.

2/17/2018 11:13:44 AM

Those "strawmen" were all based on things said or insinuated in this very thread.

2/17/2018 12:18:32 PM

Quote :

"I guess the only thing you all know for sure is that there is no way Hillary could have lost the election without some serious foul play. Why would anyone distrust our candidates and political system anyway? Our candidates and political system are so flawless (greatest the world has ever seen) that it would take a major misinformation conspiracy by a superpower to convince anyone otherwise."

I can't speak for everyone but I think Hillary was losing no matter what. Even if you took Russia entirely out of the equation, even as close as the race was, her decisions not to campaign in some key areas as well as the DOJ investigation announcements I think doomed her. Putting it another way, had the DNC not broken its charter and fucked Bernie over, she would have lost by even more and may not even have been the nominee.

Having said that, the Russians absolutely had an impact. I just have no evidence on which to say it changed one vote or 100,000 votes or 1,000,000 votes. But it absolutely had an impact.

And in fact, one impact it had that no one ever talks about is that I'm sure it actually changed some votes to Hillary. I'm certain there was a non zero number of people who saw the reporting and voted against Donald Trump specifically because they thought he was a Russian asset.

Also, I'm loving how Fox News is starting to change their angle after the indictments yesterday.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/02/17/republicans-say-obama-failed-to-act-on-russian-threat-after-indictment.html

Now, instead of saying "fake news" they are saying it's Obama's fault.

[Edited on February 17, 2018 at 5:12 PM. Reason : a]

2/17/2018 5:09:40 PM

Quote :

"""Specialists were instructed to...'use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump - we support them)'." Paragraph 43b""

dtownral and co are actually claiming that russia propped up bernie

2/17/2018 5:21:14 PM

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/16/bernie-sanders-russia-2016-election-interference-415691

[Edited on February 17, 2018 at 5:26 PM. Reason : why won't he disavow??]

2/17/2018 5:23:52 PM

Quote :

"Those "strawmen" were all based on things said or insinuated in this very thread."

I don't believe you. You got actual quotes?

[Edited on February 17, 2018 at 6:31 PM. Reason : []

2/17/2018 6:30:53 PM

^^^ you do realize that most of the social media Sanders/Trump people were actually bots right? It’s fairly obvious. Bernie has no reason to disavow because no one in his circle had anything to do with it or even gave the appearance of having anything to do with it.

It feels like some people likely fell prey to the disinformation campaigns and have a vested interest in continuing to deny it.

^^^^ I would argue it will never be provable. It was so close in those three swing states. What, 77k total. I’m more inclined, as you are, to say the Comey/DoJ letter had a bigger influence.

[Edited on February 17, 2018 at 6:45 PM. Reason : X]

2/17/2018 6:43:28 PM

^ bernie did disavow throughout the campaign the worst of the bot sentiments

Trump not only actively encouraged the same sentiments, he fed them, and is still feeding and encouraging these kind of sentiments (fbi is anti trump, Russia is a hoax, economic metrics were fake under obama, obama is a criminal that spied on him, immigrants are violent murderers, etc).

2/17/2018 7:45:37 PM

it was pretty obvious on reddit that some of the bernie people were bots or insane people

most people on social media are not bots, but sanders absolutely disavowed the crazies multiple times

https://thinkprogress.org/bernie-sanders-tells-berniebros-to-knock-it-off-we-dont-want-that-crap-dac49275602f/
http://www.ebony.com/news-views/sen-bernie-sanders-interview-jamilah-lemieux#axzz3yeJNiGsx
etc...

what is sanders supposed to disavow now exactly about this? he and his campaign had no involvement and told people acting like that to stop. he'll probably make a statement saying something like that we need to take action to stop russian interference, but he has no duty to apologize for or disavow russian bots.

[Edited on February 17, 2018 at 10:26 PM. Reason : .]

2/17/2018 10:21:28 PM

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-is-ignoring-the-worst-attack-on-america-since-911/2018/02/18/5ad888f2-14f3-11e8-8b08-027a6ccb38eb_story.html?utm_term=.177c84f8b13b
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2018/02/17/russia-is-at-war-with-our-democracy-when-will-we-finally-start-defending-it/?utm_term=.ea066fb06b81
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/america-is-under-attack-and-the-president-doesnt-care/553667/
http://www.newsweek.com/senator-angus-king-us-russia-investigations-senate-intelligence-committee-806973
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/02/russia-launches-information-war-us-responds-with-lawsuit/
https://twitter.com/peterbakernyt/status/964897288140312578
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/18/podesta-trump-draft-dodger-democracy-416866
https://twitter.com/jonathanalter/status/964658149352509441
https://twitter.com/ktumulty/status/965292386178994176
https://twitter.com/MaxBoot/status/965389028378910720
https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/963480259604643842
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h94bBaME-w

people have lost their fucking minds

[Edited on February 18, 2018 at 9:11 PM. Reason : .]

2/18/2018 8:53:36 PM

go on...

2/19/2018 12:24:32 AM

i'm also interested in seeing which talking points adultswim uses to try to spin this into not being a big deal

2/19/2018 8:44:09 AM

https://theintercept.com/2018/02/19/a-consensus-emerges-russia-committed-an-act-of-war-on-par-with-pearl-harbor-and-911-should-the-u-s-response-be-similar/

2/19/2018 11:09:55 AM

holy cow, this is the biggest strawman i've ever read

Quote :

". If you really believe that Russia – with some phishing links sent to John Podesta and some fake Facebook ads and Twitter bots – committed an “act of war” of any kind, let alone one on par with Pearl Harbor and 9/11, then it’s inevitable that extreme retaliatory measures will be considered and likely triggered. "

lol, "hey guys, nothing to see here, just a phishing link sent to podesta and nothing else"

no wonder you're confused about this

2/19/2018 11:41:00 AM

how do you think we should retaliate to this act of war?

2/19/2018 11:46:04 AM

indictments, extend sanctions, and need to build an international coalition to expose individuals invoved for them to extend sanctions. we need to take defensive actions to secure our electronic infrastructure and add redundancy and transparity to those that are critical to our democracy like voting. we also need to take offensive show of force actions as a deterrence (i don't know enough about our cyber warfare capabilities to add detail to that). all of this starts by treating it as a serious threat to our democracy and not minimizing it.

2/19/2018 11:58:47 AM

Quote :

"extend sanctions"

Sanctions hurt people more than governments. If you want to generate more anti-US sentiment in Russia, this is definitely the way to do it.

Quote :

"and need to build an international coalition to expose individuals invoved for them to extend sanctions. "

A coalition of other countries who do the same thing as Russia, but weren't caught?

Quote :

"we also need to take offensive show of force actions as a deterrence (i don't know enough about our cyber warfare capabilities to add detail to that). all of this starts by treating it as a serious threat to our democracy and not minimizing it."

You're really suggesting cyber-warfare as a retaliation to something we also do across the world? This reeks of exceptionalism.

Quote :

"we need to take defensive actions to secure our electronic infrastructure and add redundancy and transparity to those that are critical to our democracy like voting."

Definitely.

2/19/2018 12:13:07 PM

Quote :

"You're really suggesting cyber-warfare as a retaliation to something we also do across the world? This reeks of exceptionalism."

it's only exceptionalism if you don't acknowledge that this kind of action was a direct attack to our core democracy and not normal realpolitik. the purpose of offensive actions would be to establish a sort of mutual destruction detente.

and sanctions should be targeted to the individuals involved, they should be exposed. actions such as exposing embarrassing bank accounts of financial transactions or even damaging bank accounts could even be taken

also, it's totally possible that we have stepped up our cyber activity, a lot of that wouldn't be known to the public (although i'm skeptical we have). the other things will definitely require publicly acknowledging that this is a real issue though.



[Edited on February 19, 2018 at 12:27 PM. Reason : .]

2/19/2018 12:19:23 PM

Not even Greenwald can cite any of our war-monger representatives or pundits that have openly called for open war/a kinetic strike against Russia. *because they don't exist*

Instead he has to play on the innuendo of people rightly pointing out that this was an attack on the US, even if those people use stupid hyperbole in an attempt to achieve their point.

Consider for a minute that people were forced to this hyperbole in the face of a president, and in fact a majority of the GOP, that refuse to see a problem with a foreign nation tampering in our elections. We COULD have nuanced conversations in this country about cyber security and the 2016 election, but guess what, an entire political party, nearly from top to bottom, is only interested in obfuscation.

^ALL Russian sanctions to this point have been targeted toward oligarch individuals in Russia. They should minimize the effect on the average Ivan of all the possible options.

2/19/2018 12:25:59 PM

Quote :

"it's only exceptionalism if you don't acknowledge that this kind of action was a direct attack to our core democracy and not normal realpolitik."

dude really?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/sunday-review/russia-isnt-the-only-one-meddling-in-elections-we-do-it-too.html

Quote :

"stupid dangerous, jingoistic hyperbole"

[Edited on February 19, 2018 at 12:31 PM. Reason : .]

2/19/2018 12:28:01 PM

yeah, jesus christ have you ever read and of my posts on here? i'm fully aware of these kinds of covert and overt actions and am not implying that they are okay. part of the detente would be stopping (or more realistically slowing) these kinds of actions. some degree of propaganda is expected and accepted realpolitik, but we are past that point and need to dial it back

why does our shit history on this kind of thing make you okay with russia doing something like getting into voter rolls?

[Edited on February 19, 2018 at 12:32 PM. Reason : .]

2/19/2018 12:32:08 PM

Quote :

"^ALL Russian sanctions to this point have been targeted toward oligarch individuals in Russia. They should minimize the effect on the average Ivan of all the possible options."

That isn't true. This is the one they're trying to pass:

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr4884/text

Quote :

"why does our shit history on this kind of thing make you okay with russia doing something like getting into voter rolls?"

I'm not okay with it. I would love to see our election systems improved and better defenses put in place. But punishing Russia is hypocritical and counterproductive. And do you really think it's for the Good of the People of the US? Fuck no. If it were, we wouldn't have billionaires buying elections and legislation. They're using this narrative to paint democratic socialists (and other parts of the left) as willing/unwilling traitors.

2/19/2018 12:49:58 PM

explain how a response is counterproductive and not for the good of the people. tell me why we shouldn't take action to attacks on our voting infrastructure.

2/19/2018 12:57:46 PM

Quote :

"explain how a response is counterproductive and not for the good of the people. tell me why we shouldn't take action to attacks on our voting infrastructure."

Making our voting systems more secure is a good response. Punishment (apart from punishing US citizens who were involved) is a hypocritical waste of time and money. It's political theater meant to "unite" us against a common enemy.

2/19/2018 1:05:58 PM

Quote :

"But punishing Russia is hypocritical and counterproductive."

Hypocrisy is irrelevant. We were attacked. We should respond. It's as simple as that. Not responding is what's counterproductive.

2/19/2018 1:19:27 PM

The best response to an attack is not always another attack.

2/19/2018 1:30:31 PM

Quote :

"Punishment (apart from punishing US citizens who were involved) is a hypocritical waste of time and money. It's political theater meant to "unite" us against a common enemy."

so now you're no longer saying that is's counter productive and not in the interest of the us people, you're just saying it's hypocritical?

are you expecting russia to stop infiltrating our voting system because of sanctions, or are you saying it's okay for them to continue and that we should just hope our defensive measures are effective?

[Edited on February 19, 2018 at 1:31 PM. Reason : because they have not slowed down so far]

2/19/2018 1:31:10 PM

^^

[Edited on February 19, 2018 at 1:31 PM. Reason : a]

2/19/2018 1:31:32 PM

The fact that you’re rolling your eyes at that comment is a sad reflection of the US mindset.

2/19/2018 1:33:22 PM

but you just keep saying don't retaliate without explaining why, or if you are okay with russia doing this or are just expecting sanctions to be effective by themselves.

russia has not slowed down their activity, are you expecting that sanctions will be enough to stop them or are you just expecting defensive measures to be sufficient and are okay with them continuing to try?

2/19/2018 1:39:47 PM

Retaliation makes enemies of Russian citizens, including the proposed sanctions. It continues the cycle of conflict.

Defense and a cessation of our own anti-democratic actions. Same thing I’ve said for years about most US conflicts. We could set a better example.

[Edited on February 19, 2018 at 2:42 PM. Reason : Can’t spell]

2/19/2018 2:39:00 PM

Hearing dtownral talk about an attack on our voting systems is news to me. I've been asking for months and would still like to see anything related to the evidence that the voting/votes/ballots were tampered with because that would be serious. None of the accusations I've heard were more than information campaigns and I'm not sure they don't have a right to spread information.

2/19/2018 2:47:44 PM